Opinion Brief: Thursday, July 14, 2016

Tonight’s Opinion Brief is brought to you by the Canadian Red Cross. Canadians can be proud of their efforts to assist those affected by the Alberta Fires.
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Good evening, subscribers. The Crown’s decision to drop all charges against Senator Patrick Brazeau makes it pretty much unanimous: The Senate expenses scandal was a political and policing trainwreck that tainted everyone involved. As usual, taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag.

Tasha Kheiriddin asks the question: What, if anything, can be done to prevent the same thing from happening again? Obviously politicians are going to be more careful in future about ‘making examples’ of senators with questionable expenses, but can the institution itself be kept on a shorter leash? “Despite the government’s best efforts in appointing ‘worthy’ Canadians, senators will still have a sinecure until age 75 — and no matter how strict or clear its rules on expenses, cases of questionable Senate spending likely will arise again.”

Environics founder Michael Adams points to a fundamental challenge facing the Conservative Party of Canada as it chooses its next leader: Its base has some rather unforgiving expectations of the party’s leadership on ‘values’ questions, but those values sometimes clash with those of the people Conservatives need to woo in order to form a government. “Conservatives cannot alienate the foreign-born population that represents more than a fifth of Canadians — nor can they alienate the portions of their base who would be drawn to, if not a Canadian Trump, then perhaps a Canadian Cameron or Sarkozy.”